The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1887-07-07
A strong Indictment

The New York Tribune in comment
ing upon the remarks of Senator Hiscock
at the recent unvailing of a monument
at Syracuse, says:
Senator Hiscock recognizes that the
new generation cannot and should not
| share 1.-The animOsities of the wal
period. Already the young rejoice at
the grand results achieved, but are less
mindful of the train of events that led
to the struggle, and their successors
will take even less heed of them, but
reverence for patriotic memories will
be kept alive and it will be grateful
peoples loving duty in the coming
ages Something more than grateful
memory inspires the Observances. 1t is
the highest duty of the Nation perpet-
ually to teach the sacred obligation of
loyalty, aud the criminality of rebellion,
that those who are'happily free from
vindictive feeling may not also be most
unhappily devoid of sense of right
and of duty. Thus the Senator says:
Sherman's epigram, 1.-The war for the
rebellion was wrong, eternally wrong,
and that for the Union right, eternally
right" will go laundering along the
ages, and while it is remembered we
will rear monuments to-the memory of
Union veterans, and by these and other
proper obServanceS fittingly commem-
crate their sevices.
When a nation teaches that treason is
as noble as loyalty, and merits the same
honor, then it strikes at its own life.
The nation has no business to exist, no
business to enact laws, no business to
punish anybody for breaking laws, if
the traitors and the loyal men are tG
stand on an equal plan in the dlspas-
Sionate Judgment of the next genera
ton succeeding the suppression of a re
hallinn IF tho Spannrafif~D hnG mt
with all its freednm from vindictive
passion, an abiding sense of the wrong
fulness of treason, and of the grandeur
of that heroic loyalty which preserved
the Union, then it is not worthy of its
heritage, not fit to govern a great
nation, not able to confront and put
down the new forms of resistance to
law which are sure to menace the
Republic.
GuSh and sentimentalism have done
their worst and utmost to confound a
sturdy and abiding sense of loyalty with
a mean VIndictiveneSS toward political
opponents. 1t was high time that the
distinction should be made clear by the
Senator, and by others whose duty it is
to lead public opinion. No nation can
with decency, or self-reSpect, or safety,
forget the gulf between loyalty and law
breaking, or suffer its people to cherish
a feeling that unf1lnchlng and perpetual
condemnation of crime is petty Vindic-
tiveness. Thus Mr.. Hiscock says:
From the flags our armies captured
to the constitutional amendmentS-the
new bill of the peoples rights-nothing
gained by the war must ever be sur
rendered; all trophies of valor and pa
triotism must be treasured until the
elements dissolve them, and the work
of preservation should cheerfuIly be
performed by the Government, and the
people should and will see that this Sa-
cred trust is executed.
The genius and bravery of men dis
played in the commission of a great
crime against their country may exact
honor from their associates and ad-
miration from others, but when they
are crowned as patriots, heroes, or
martyrs, their teachings and their acts
are Endorsed and the young especially
may be inspired with their spirit and
imbibe their pricinples.
So emphatic an act of servitude to the
political power that attempted by a
long and destructive civil war to
dissolve the Union as the surrender of
their battle flags and their removal
from the Capital would be a national